La Balade des épavistes
Luc Baranger
La Balade des épavistes
Luc Baranger
(Excerpt from Saturday, p. 156-167)
On the ring road, they turned east towards Saint-Ouen, where Rodolphe, Max's brother, lived. He was six years older than Max, and he'd made a bundle selling American cars before making a career change and getting into arms trafficking, calling himself a clandestine craftsman. He had found himself behind bars many times because of his activities, but was never convicted. As crafty as he was tricky - "he's sneaky enough to swindle a Jew with Arab junk," said Max, who still felt family loyalty. Rodolphe had always known how to be a faithful and dedicated snitch, and how to negotiate with judges for services rendered, when push came to shove. Unfortunately, forced by other prisoners to escape with them - under the threat of a weapon - he had fractured his pelvis jumping from the wall of a penal institution. His lawyer, Lazuraire, had managed a feat unique in the annals of justice: having the Ministry of said Justice condemned to pay a disability pension to the man, whose whole lower body had been paralyzed.
These days, Rentchler Senior lived in a single-floor bungalow where he got around only in a wheelchair, which didn't stop him from maintaining his contacts with the criminal element and trafficking in illicit weapons, "to keep my hand it," he used to say, "since I've already lost the use of my legs..."
Just as Clovis was about to push the doorbell, he and his American girls saw the gate of the small garden open as if by magic. They were halfway up the slate-covered path when Rodolphe appeared in his wheelchair in the doorway of the bungalow.
"Hi, kids," he called, "I've been expecting you. My little brother told me you were coming. Follow the guide," he added, making a perfect half-turn.
"I didn't know you were acquainted with Raymond Burr," the fat girl whispered to Clovis, thinking she was being funny; he had not forgotten to bring the coypu pâté Max had made.
Bent in his wheelchair, Rodolphe Rentchler was ill-dressed, with an oversized brown wool sweater over a rust-coloured shirt with a frayed collar; his eyes were crushed under lids as heavy as carriage tops and he had long oily hair, with a part sprinkled with dandruff, plastered to his unnaturally rounded forehead. With his sparse moustache, the skin on his face, crimson with eczema, his gaunt hands with long bony fingers outrageously ringed with gold, he surely thought twice before looking at himself in a mirror. Only his large, fur-lined slippers looked new. In the kitchen, besides the smell of cat piss- a greying Chartreux cat with mismatched eyes that lingered between Clovis' boots - everything looked old, worn, wobbly, patched up and beat up in a funky, acid smell of cheap, vinegary wine. You had to wonder what death was waiting for before visiting this place.
In chipped and mismatched cups, the old man treated his guests to some sort of ersatz coffee and biscuits that had been flirting with the damp. The cripple permitted himself a few libidinous remarks about the two women. Clovis, feeling pity for him, refrained from saying "Man, considering your condition, you'd better avoid references to your nether regions." He smiled instead, before waving a hand to show his irritation with Kate's constant "what did the old fart say?" - the lack of subtitles distressed her. Then they came to the reason for their visit. The incongruous half-portion of a man asked Clovis to move a piece of furniture from the living-room, a kind of enormous black cabinet made of fibre board that must have been new when Line Renaud was the in top twenty with "Ma cabane au Canada." The top shelves were empty, of course, but the lower ones were jam-packed with unspeakable junk, dog-eared police novels, cheap little comic books dating back to the sixties, Battler Britton, Kit Carson, Jungle Jim and Tex Bill, old issues of Le Chasseur Français, various bills, commercial flyers and even a Virgin Mary under a globe in which it snowed each time it was turned over. Clovis was expecting a safe in the wall but he saw nothing except yellowing wallpaper. Then the old man asked him to take off the insulating panels held in place by some Velcro over the doubled-bottomed antique. Kate helped Clovis and let out a long, admiring whistle when she saw about twenty handguns and automatics carefully hung all over the walls of the cabinet. She snatched a rather formidable .44 Magnum automatic.
"Do you see this, Pat? The same gun as Uncle Clint's! Clo, ask Raymond Burr there where he got it. Even back home, it's become as rare as grey matter inside a President."
Clovis translated and Rodolphe declared that it was none of their business, he was only there to advise while they were shopping, not to document the origins of the offerings. Clovis got himself another cup of the cat piss coffee, sat down on a Formica chair, put his elbows on the oilcloth, which was decorated with garish Ford Model Ts and let the girls do their shopping. There was a knot in his stomach. He was there with female bounty hunters, getting some guns, ready to treat the whole thing as a joke, but this visit heralded events he guessed would be bloody, and which he would have rather avoided.
After hefting Glocks, Walthers and Manurhins, (with her able hand and a dexterity that left the old man agog), Patty chose a 65 Lady Smith, a little toy with a rosewood grip incrusted with small luminescent plates, easy to find in a girl's purse. Kate played at length with the Dirty-Harry-type .44 Magnum but put it back, slowly and reluctantly, with obvious respect. She then chose an instrument of the same calibre, with a more modest appearance, a Ruger Super Blackhawk. Before the Texan girl asked, the cripple proudly added that he would throw in the 25-millimetre scope that went with it.
"Clo," the fat one said, "why don't you ask the Incredible Shrinking Man if by any chance he'd have some Hirtenberger flat-nosed, semi-jacketed bullets, for the Lady Smith, and some Remington E. for the Ruger."
Clovis didn't even need to translate. Hirtenberger and Remington E. had resonated like D minor and F sharp in Rodolphe Rentchler's ears - the Johann Sebastian Bach of light artillery. With a grunt and a nod, he confirmed that these explosive models were available.
Clovis took a wad of bills from the pocket of his jeans and counted out two thousand five hundred Euros, laying them on the cracked oilcloth.
"That doesn't include ammo," the old man remarked. "But since you're paying cash and you are kind of my brother's spiritual son, I'm prepared to throw them in, but on one small condition."
"What's that?"
"The girls have to show me their boobs."
"Get out of here. No fucking way. They're Ricans, not used to that kind of stuff. Old age must have badly messed up your neurons, old man, if you can't tell La Baule-les-Pins from Miami Beach."
"Think about it, son. What you're gonna do with the pieces if you don't have bullets?"
"Is there a problem?" Kate asked.
Embarrassed, Clovis translated the old man's request. The two girls looked at each other, with a smile, And one, two, three, go! Before you could say Jacques Robinson, the clothes flew off and in the light that managed to sneak through the dirty drapes, two pairs of breast were displayed. Well... on one side, capped with dark nipples in the centre, a pair of rotundas escaped from a convent school, firm and small, still sporting the triangular, milky seal of the last summer's bathing suit; on the other side, two astonishing Berber water skins streaked with stretch marks, inducing pity more than desire, apparently waiting for some charitable Bedouin to fill them at the closest oasis, to give them back a human shape. Clovis not impressed by the size of Kate's breasts than by the engineering of her bra. Perhaps the underwires could be recycled as hoops for tunnel greenhouses where they grow lettuces? He didn't dare say anything aloud. The old man leered, with a stupid gaping smile that showed his pathetic lack of lower teeth, and wheeled his chair towards the girls. He raised his long bony fingers, as if to touch Patty's breast. The Texan girl stepped back. The chair wheel hit a table leg.
"Hey, wait a minute, old man. You said 'show,' Clovis interrupted, "nothing about touching."
"Just one little touch, the girl with the broken arm," Rodolphe begged, looking like a despondent spaniel.
"No!"
"One of the fat one's flabby jugs?"
"I said no."
"You're heartless," the old man retorted.
He wheeled himself back while the girls got dressed again.
"No gratitude," the cripple whined. "Thanks to me you got a good eyeful too."
"And a nice long one too," Clovis admitted. "OK, moving on! Where's the ammo?"
"Go to the shack at the back of the garden," said Rodolphe, who suddenly seemed to be in a good mood again. "You'll find three old TVs. Unscrew the back panel of the bottom one, and you'll find your little heart's desire. Say, though, don't you want any big stuff?"
"Your brother and I have hunting guns: a Benelli and a Stroeger."
The old man smiled. "If your little party turns out to a Valentine's Day massacre, you won't go far with your peashooters. Wouldn't you like to buy a seven-shot Remington 870 Marine Magnum?"
Clovis translated the offer for the girls.
"He's right," Patty said. "And if he happened to have some Federal Magnum Turkey loads to put in them, 567 grams, you could take on the Pentagon all by yourself."
"What was I telling you?" the old Rentchler cackled.
"So you do understand English?" Clovis said, surprised, turning to the cripple.
"Hey, two years in the States at Barnum's, when I was young. Taxi."
"Taxi? You drove a taxi?"
"You twit! In the circus, the taxis the guy who picks up the elephant shit. And believe me, in Barnum's, that was a full-time job! Tell the suet pile over there for me that the old fart pisses on her crack."
"What did he say?"Kate asked.
"That he feels much honoured that a professional like yourself has come to him for supplies," Clovis lied.
They were about to leave after Clovis had paid for his new toy when Rodolphe called him back.
"You paid cash, so you're entitled to a little gift on the house."
"What is it?"Clovis asked, intrigued.
"A little Norinco," the cripple replied.
"And what's that?"
"I see I'm dealing with a real rube. Not knowing what a Norinco is... I'll explain, fuckbrain. Norinco TU-KKV, 22 long rifle, but with a five shot mag, mind you! Based on the Mauser 98 K that the Hitler Youth had. My brother will be happy. Double action, tangent sight. And I'm giving you the scope and a box of Eley PB. They don't look like much, these little buggers, but they still pack a punch, 364 metres a second at fifty meters. That's not chump change."
Bowled over by such knowledge of ballistics, Clovis translated for the girls, who confirmed it was a great bonus and that this toy was very much appreciated in the Americas, where it sold briskly and was, of course, responsible for dozens of innocent deaths each year.
Clovis got the ammunition from the shack, then Rodolphe told him where the rifle was hidden (in the back of the garden, above the septic tank of some ancient outhouse squatted by enormous black spiders), and Clovis was leaving through the gate of the bungalow, escorted by the two Texan girls, when Kate whispered:"You didn't tell me that you knew Bukowski as well as Raymond Burr?"
"Sorry," Clovis said. "But thanks for your help, girls."
"You see, Pat," Kate said, "I always told you that Frenchies were just a much of bastards. We've been here just one hour and we already had to strip for an old lecher."
"Yep, you're right," Patty concurred. Turning to Clovis, she added: "I can't help thinking you were in cahoots with the old geezer and that you called beforehand to arrange everything."
Clovis hesitated. Were they serious or joking? He strode toward the Cutlass, leaving the girls behind, then turned back and gave them an authoritative finger, shouting: "Go get yourself fucked by eunuchs!"
Although he would much rather not have done it, Clovis had to cross the ring road to drive into Paris. They drove aimlessly for a good half hour. In the sky, the clouds were playing cat and mouse with the sun. The girls were marvelling at everything. They drove three times around the Place de l'Étoile, then went down the Champs Élysées. At La Concorde, Clovis decided to go the other way and turned onto Rue de Berry, looking for an electronics shop. The girls almost swooned when they saw Jean Reno who, a pretty woman on his arm, calmly walking down the sidewalk. Clovis had no trouble convincing the girls that in Paris, France, the land of freedom, fuckers and old lechers, you found big international movie stars at each street corner and that, no later than last month, he'd happened on Sharon Stone and Julia Roberts French-kissing one another in a side street off Avenue Foch. You see, you little sluts, he thought, I too can mix truth and lies.
They struck out at the first electronics shop, but found what they wanted in the second one. Kate and Patty knew a lot about the subject that had brought them there, much more than the sales people, who were ridiculed quickly by their embarrassingly informed questions. They bought a chip the size of half a fingernail and its GPS box that could be connected to any computer with Internet access. They had a bite in a tavern then drove to the Porte d'Orléans to get back on the highway. They were passing Le Mans and the girls were sound asleep when Clovis got a phone call from Max who informed him that the exchange with the duo was for that very evening. After hanging up, Clovis breathed out as slowly as he could. He felt ready, satisfied he had secured all possible assets, at least those he thought necessary. But anguish was still gnawing at his stomach, as tenacious as a leach. A few days earlier, the hold-up at the Mercedes dealership, which was supposed to be a walk in the park, had gone badly. How would this evening turn out?
© 2006 Éditions Alire & Luc Baranger
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